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Contrary to what is popularly imagined about Barack Obama, I do not think he is exceptionally intelligent. In fact, I don’t think he’s even particularly bright. I’ll even go so far as to suggest that he might have only a mediocre intellect.

What evidence is there for this alleged superior intellect? What makes anyone think he’s smart? Well, he can read the hell out of a teleprompter. Like nobody’s business.

If I were a manager at my place of employment, though, I would fire anyone as bad at their job as Obama has turned out to be. Now, to be fair, I’m in a technical profession. Being able to read from a script doesn’t matter much in a binary right/wrong engineering environment.

Well, the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and even the occasional host on Fox News continually tell us he’s oh so smart.

Sorry. That’s not good enough. The media tell us things all the time that simply aren’t true.

Maybe he did particularly well in college?

Alas, no, we haven’t been able to see his transcripts. Which, if they were stellar, would almost certainly have been released and widely trumpeted long ago.

You know in your heart what that means.

Now, college transcripts don’t always reflect reality. Comparing my own transcripts from the first time I went to college, right out of high school, and the last time I went, after I got out of the Army, you wouldn’t think they belonged to the same person. I was pretty bright, but my schoolwork sucked when I was 19. Years later, I did far better. Far, far better.

Shall I go on? I am by no means convinced Obama was admitted to Harvard Law on his own merits. Everything about him smacks of being a beneficiary of Affirmative Action, as well as receiving a helping hand from well-connected leftists who saw some potential in the stripling Obama.

Which doesn’t go far towards convincing me he is even slightly smart.

Well, what do the people who know him have to say? I don’t know how well George Clooney might know Obama, but he was quoted this week as saying,

[L]ook, there’s a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who’s nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know.

Um… George? You hang out in Hollywood. A starving pack of rabid hyenas would be smarter, nicer and more compassionate than anyone you know.

In any event, I remain utterly unconvinced that Obama is any smarter than average. Given his repeated policy failures and apparent unwillingness to learn from them, there might be said to be proof that he is, quite possibly, rather dim.

Obama also certainly seem to be lacking the kind of temperament that the President of the United States ought to have. Nor do I think, pace Clooney, that he’s a particularly nice guy. I don’t even think he’s, at core, what might be described as “a good man, albeit with bad ideas.” But that’s a topic for another day. Or another blogger.